Canada's right turn

Posted: Tuesday, January 24, 2006

THE CANADIAN elections this week offer encouraging news for U.S. relations with its northern neighbor - and an ominous warning for Beltway Republicans.

Canada's Conservative Party ended 12 years of Liberal Party rule in Monday's parliamentary elections, although they fell 30 seats short of winning an outright majority. Still, it was enough to force Prime Minister Paul Martin to resign as Liberal leader. Mr. Martin had been critical of the Bush administration's foreign policy and had campaigned on anti-American rhetoric.

And now he's gone. His successor will be Tory leader Stephen Harper. He may not be as close a Bush ally as Britain's Tony Blair. He has been widely characterized, however, as the most pro-American Canadian leader in a long time (perhaps not since Brian Mulroney in the 1980s).

If that development puts smiles on the faces of Washington conservatives, they should temper their enthusiasm with the knowledge of how their Canadian counterparts - whose party came into existence less than three years ago - rose to power.

No matter how much one credits the Tories' ideas for persuading the electorate, there's no denying widespread voter dissatisfaction with Canada's ruling Liberal Party. It had grown fat, lazy and corrupt while enjoying its majority status.

Clearly, many Canadians on Monday decided to throw the bums out and give the new guys a chance.

Republicans won control of Congress in 1994 with a similar dynamic - and stand to lose it in this year's midterm elections for the same reasons. The party is seen as having abandoned its limited-government, fiscally conservative roots, and it is ensnared in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

U.S. conservatives should look north for guidance if they don't want to see their electoral fortunes go south in November.